Tudor Creek Mangrove Restoration

Mangrove restoration in Tudor Creek is an initiative by Brain Youth Group a

registered community youth group in the northern side of Tudor creek,

Mombasa. The creek hosts mangrove forests and other resources, and

attracts recreational activities such as yachting and boating. The creek

is encroached by human settlement, including hotels and residential

buildings, leaving no protection zone. Thus, pollution from within and

around the Island is common and has led to severe degradation of the

mangroves.

The aim of this project is to enhance the capacity of the communities to

regenerate and sustainably manage mangrove resources for increased

livelihoods.

Brain Youth Group is a registered community youth group with a total of 30

members. The group operates on the northern side of Tudor creek,

Mombasa. Its main activities are mangrove conservation, cultural

heritage conservation and HIV/AIDS awareness.

The need for mangrove restoration was as a result of the surrounding

community who mainly youth realizing that the mangroves were degrading

at an alarming rate due to illegal cutting and uncontrolled development,

and the fact that local communities are the most affected by the

negative consequences of continued mangrove destruction, i.e climate

change impacts.

Mangroves provide numerous benefits essential to local communities

including protection from coastal flooding ; food source and reduction

of salt water intrusion to agricultural lands and also controlling soil

erosion among others.

According to recent studies, climate change is already having a significant

impact on ecosystems, economies and communities. This a result of

deforestation and land use changes which have led to increased carbon

dioxide in the atmosphere. Climate change has for instance led to

drought. There is a reduction in water table and the importance of water

in relation to social issues such as food supply, health, industry,

transportation and ecosystem integrity cannot be ignored.

Climate change also threatens the health of our society through

increased diseases, freshwater shortages, worsened smog and more. These

impacts also pose incalculable economic risks that far outweigh the

economic risks of taking action today.

To alter continued global warming, as citizens are responsible of taking

concerted action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the sooner we

act the less severe impacts will be. This project is needed because

mangroves help in climate change mitigation.

This project will involve:

1. Collecting natural seeds (seedlings of same mangrove species as those

that previously occurred naturally on the identified zone)

2. Planting the seedlings in a prepared nursery

3. Transplanting the seedlings to the desired location (natural nearby mangroves will be used as a reference model)

4. Long-term community management as well as monitoring to ensure project sustainability.

Since replanting mangroves without curbing illegal cutting will not

solve the problem of mangrove degradation in the area, the youth will

organize a surveillance unit where culprits will be reported to the

Kenya Forest Service for action.

The project will be carried out along the Tudor Creek, Junda

sub-location (Mshomoroni area), Kisauni Constituency in Mombasa County.

The project is planned to start in the month of August upon securing

enough funds. We will offer training to supporting community members on

mangrove nursery planting and transplanting. So far we have raised

80,000 mangrove seedlings which are currently being monitored to ensure

long-term success.

This project will work because it will directly involve the communities

and also because we have done a similar work before which has been a

success.

This project will involve 25volunteers who are the members of the Brain

Youth Group. We will also partner with other organizations working on

this issue such as Kenya Forest Service (KFS), Kenya Marine and

Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) and Coastal and Marine Resource

Development (COMRED).

YES, we have researched on other local groups working on the issue

This project will directly serve the Brain Youth Group which I am a member and also the Junda village as a whole as involving local communities in controlled and informed planting is important for developing awareness and ownership of a project. Since maintenance of mangrove nurseries and over the project period requires a fair amount of labour, this will also create employment to some of the community members.

In the next year, we hope to have replanted at least 45,000 mangrove seedlings in the degraded areas, and after two years we hope to achieve increased mangrove coverage, and increased livelihood opportunities for the local community.

Monitoring will be done for a period of three to five years using:

1. Simple time-lapse photo after every 6months (twice a year)- photo

point monitoring is a process of taking repeated photographs of the

restoration site over a period of time at the same location to observe

the overall ecosystem change over time

2. Direct counting to identify species diversity

3. Measure of height and diameter of trees using tape measures after every 12months(1year)

4. Transect based survey every three months (4times a year)-this for

observation of other flora and fauna occurring on-site which is a good

indicator of problems or rehabilitation success. Increased mangrove

coverage will show success.

One the seed grant has been used up, mangrove restoration work will be sustained by planting mangrove seedlings in nurseries then once old enough, the seedlings will be sold to other organizations for restoration purposes.